Page 5

Chapter Five

D arik had accomplished two days of hard marching through the dense forest of the ancestors’ planet, following the map he’d received at Javon’s encampment. He’d made excellent progress moving at a Badari Warrior’s best speed and expected to complete his task well within the Great Mother’s deadline. Game and fish were plentiful and tonight he’d decided to camp in a small clearing and cook fresh meat over a small open fire. Stomach full of his delicious dinner, he sat on a fallen log, feeding his fire twigs and small branches to keep it going, while he pondered what was really going on here.

He was no fool. The goddess could have easily placed him right at the spring itself had she chosen to do so or not bothered to send him here at all. She could have simply handed him the water he needed. Therefore the Great Mother must have had a reason to drop him right outside the high chief’s location and ensure he had to interact with the people there to get his directions. He wondered again if she was concerned his people were becoming complacent with their safe haven in Sanctuary Valley, particularly now that MARL the ancient alien AI had been refreshed and was good for another 10,000 years of guarding and powering the settlement there. Not to mention the Tzibir location hidden away in the north.

The war had settled into something of a routine as well, with the Badari making sorties outside the valley to do battle with Khagrish security forces and to rescue more humans when possible but the packs were stymied when it came to launching an offensive powerful enough to drive the Khagrish off Ushandirr and gain true freedom. And even if they did, there was the question of the Mawreg overlords who had contracted for the planet to be used by the Khagrish for doing horrific scientific ‘research’. He was well aware the Mawreg had planet busting weaponry. Destruction of the world was the fate to be suffered by this planet he was sitting on right now.

Darik felt no lessening in his heart of the hatred he held for the Khagrish but it was true he and his pack brothers were becoming increasingly involved with fated mates and the possibility of families. A man fought harder for his beloved and for his children. He was positive Aydarr and Jamokan and the other Alphas retained the fire in their hearts to complete the war effort and claim the entire planet. But for them the hundreds of humans in the valley were a distraction. It was noble of the Badari to insist on freeing humans wherever they could and to give them a safe haven but maintaining a colony-sized encampment on top of a war effort took a lot of work.

He'd seen the evidence firsthand as his mate Nicolle became more and more enmeshed in administering the Alphas’ dictates, in dealing with the human council and in problem solving on a daily basis. She now had two assistants and never seemed to make a dent in the list of action items no matter how hard all three of them worked.

Maybe the goddess believed the packs needed a reminder of the tremendous stakes at play here. More and more he came to believe she intended him to return to Ushandirr and give his testimony to the beauties of this long-gone world and the relatively peaceful life the ancestors had been living here before the enemy snatched them up to become pawns in experiments. He was no orator but he would speak his heart about how hard it was to move among the ancestors, knowing the fate which awaited them.

The packs were all counting on Reede to return from the Sectors at the head of an armada which would give them the upper hand and enable the final battle. Reede and his mate Falyn and the packs’ friend Walt had been gone on their quest for a long time and Darik hoped the relief force would show up any time now. The war had gone on for so long.

He sighed as a pocket of pitch in one branch exploded into sparks and the fiery motes drifted away on the slight breeze. This was all above his pay grade as the human soldiers said but here he was in the middle of the situation.

Drawing a deep breath of the pine scented air, Darik wished he felt more at peace. This was exactly the kind of experience he claimed to prefer, out here as a lone wolf, and the woods were beautiful. His inner predator was happy and enjoying the novelty of this time, not to mention the hunting. It reminded Darik a little of the time he’d been sent out alone to scout a strange Khagrish lab far to the north, which is where he first saw Nicolle and realized she was his mate. The two of them had fought hard to survive what the Khagrish did to them and then battled a parasitical Chimmer. He bore the scars of that encounter on his back, as did Nicolle. Even the Badari powers of healing couldn’t erase the permanent marks the aliens had left on him when one used his body as its host. Nicolle had a matching set.

He missed Nicolle so fiercely his heart ached. The mate bond throbbed in his heart from time to time but there was no contacting her through the immense gulf of time and space. When he got home he was going to ask her to come away with him, just the two of them, for at least a short respite from her job, and see if they couldn’t repair the mate bond, talk out their grief and regrets from the miscarriage and move forward. He still wanted children with her and he assumed she wanted the same but he’d never actually asked her, fearful of making her sense of loss worse. He hadn’t talked to her about their loss much at all, which he now understood was the absolutely wrong thing to do. He and Nicolle were partners in all things, good and bad. Yes, they could actually read each other’s minds when it came to proactively telepathing but no, they couldn’t read each other’s minds when it came to deeply held emotions like grief and loss.

In the solitude of the forest, he accepted the fact he’d reverted to the Badari mode of hiding his emotions. Nicolle was his mate, the other half of his heart, not a Khagrish scientist who would punish him or others if he let his feelings show. She was the woman he loved and he should have been open and honest with her and invited her to be the same with him.

“Goals to do better,” he said out loud. “Being a mate isn’t a simple thing.”

Darik decided to turn in for the night. He planned to be up and on the move before dawn and a few hours of solid sleep would give him energy to make his last two days of travel to the spring go smoothly. Rising to his feet he became aware of two things—his inner predator was suddenly alert and pacing and the forest had gone utterly silent. Hastily he kicked dirt over the fire and grabbed his pack and spear, moving deeper into the trees around the clearing.

Looking at the sky between the towering trees, he saw three green-and-blue lights moving against the stars, floating together briefly before one shot straight up toward the moons and the other two began skimming the trees. A sound which had no place on this pretech planet assaulted his ears—there were two or more flyers in the sky.

He was being hunted.

Darik sprinted deeper into the forest, weaving between the huge tree trunks. Every time he checked one of the lights was in proximity to his position. Must have scanners. On the heels of the thought he scrambled up a truly giant old growth tree, his claws digging into the bark as he ascended. Once he was high enough, he ran along the branches, each of which was as big as a sapling tree. He jumped nimbly from tree to tree, hugging the trunks when the flyer veered closer. He leaped to the ground at one point and ran along a rocky upthrust before vaulting into the foliage again and repeating his evasive techniques.

Whoever was piloting the flyer finally lost interest and rejoined their companions, hovering quite a distance away.

Guess my behavior registered as animal fleeing a threat, not as a human. Deception had been his hope. The enemy aloft had no idea of who or what Darik truly was and wouldn’t expect one of the local Badari to have the capabilities he’d been displaying as he evaded their scans. He’d let the inner predator take the lead and eventually the aliens had lost interest or been redirected to their original purpose, whatever that might be.

Darik hunkered down on the branch he was currently occupying and watched the lights. They were too far away for even his enhanced vision to make out any details but there were three of them, stationary in the sky, flashing occasional bright white rays at whatever lay directly below. He became aware of a vague urge to leave his place of concealment and show himself to those who searched but it was mild, like an itch from a bug bite which could be ignored. He supposed it was calling to the part of him descended from the Badari who lived here but the lure was overwhelmed by his genetic engineering and the alien predator DNA. His inner beast certainly had no intention of revealing itself to those who wished to harm it.

Briefly he was amused by the consternation it would cause if they had captured him. He was the ultimate result of the very reason the enemy was here, to steal the ancestors’ DNA, but at this point in time there were no Badari Warriors as such. He was eight Generations and hundreds of years removed from any person to be found on this planet. I’d have distorted and confounded all their data for sure.

He speculated what the enemy were doing at the location they’d selected but it was none of his business. By himself, without modern weaponry or any backup, he couldn’t prevent them from doing whatever the bastards wanted.

And this is all in the past anyway. Whatever happened, happened and I can’t rewrite history.

After a night of soldier’s sleep, where he rested but was alert to any threat or change in the environment, he ate a breakfast of berries and strips of meat he’d dried from a previous hunt. Never thought I’d miss survival rations but those crunchy bars are handy to have. When he was done he traveled along the upper branches and then finally descended to the forest floor and made good time. He wasn’t too worried the enemy would return in daylight and make another attempt to capture him but he and his inner beast were watchful.

His route took him in the general direction of the spot where the enemy flyers had been hovering. He planned to avoid the place. There was nothing he could do at this point. The forest was unusually quiet today, as if the events of last night had left a pall on all the creatures residing there. Darik would be happy when he got beyond this stretch of his trip.

And then he heard the sound of a baby crying.

He stopped dead in his tracks, pivoting toward the piercing cries. Whoever the child was, it had worked itself up to a frenzy. “Come on, come on, someone take care of the baby,” he muttered. It wasn’t like him to hesitate but he couldn’t force himself to keep heading north while the distant child cried. The sound came from the general area where the aliens had hovered.

The cries continued unabated and he gripped his spear more tightly and took the first step in that direction. Soon he was sprinting, he and his beast compelled to find the child and relieve its misery. At the edge of a clearing he stopped and took cover behind the low brush, surveying the scene in front of him. His heart sank.

There were three small, relatively primitive houses, built in a rough triangle. Off to the side were sheds which might be for animals or for storage, and several domesticated herd beasts stood in a clump in a makeshift corral. The door of each house was wide open and there were no signs of life at all, other than the crying, which was now more of a whimper, as if the baby had worn itself out.

The enemy ships had been directly overhead, Darik was positive.

He could visualize the scene all too well. The aliens would have used their impeller ray on the occupants of these houses and the locals would have had no choice but to walk outside and meet their fate, whisked away as prisoners, never to return. Javon had told him there were a few isolated settlements of trappers here in the north, who collected fur from various animals and sold the pelts at big tribal gatherings. He’d also said a number of the mysterious disappearances reported to him had been from such tiny holdings.

After watching for a few minutes and confirming there was no sign of life, Darik rose and walked across the dirt yard toward the first house. The animals mooed at him, as if asking for their morning feeding but he ignored them for now. Cautiously he stepped into the dark house, spear at the ready but it was empty. A board and game pieces sat on the rough table off to the side, with two mugs half full of ale, as if the residents had been interrupted in the midst of their friendly contest. A crude rocking chair sat off to the side, close to the fireplace, and a pile of yarn lay as if dropped from a lap onto the floor. There was a loom visible in the next room and the kitchen was off to the side.

The house had a loft and Darik climbed the ladder slowly, finding a large bed, a number of chests and containers and a crib. Heart in his mouth he rushed to the crib and leaned over.

A happy gurgle greeted him and he was transfixed by the most beautiful pair of hazel eyes he’d ever seen. The baby was red faced from all her screaming but she gave him a smile and reached out her chubby fingers to him. He tucked the spear into its holder on his back and scooped her out of the crib.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he said with a broken heart, grieving for all she’d lost and would never know.

The alien invaders were notoriously slipshod and it probably didn’t occur to them to bother searching the houses, confident their impeller ray would bring all the occupants to them. But a baby couldn’t make its way outside and Darik would bet any sum of credits the parents of the child and their neighbors wouldn’t have mentioned her to the creatures who kidnapped them.

A changing table sat off to the side and as he could tell she was in need of a diaper change, he took care of the issue first, giving her a bit of a bath in the process. There were a few clean outfits in a basket next to the table so he dressed her, which was a challenge as his hands were so big and she was so small and wiggly. He almost lost her off the edge of the table before he realized she had utterly no sense of self preservation and could roll.

Wrapping her in a small, crocheted blanket, he made the leap to the first floor and explored the kitchen. There he found what were obviously bottles for feeding the child but nothing to put in them. She was beginning to work herself up again and he was sure she was starving. He stared around the small house in despair, waiting for inspiration to hit. She was so trusting and so vulnerable in his arms. He and his inner beast were fiercely protective of this tiny orphan and it was the predator which nudged him toward the yard and the penned-up animals.

Darik found a sling for carrying her against his chest and after she was safely ensconced there, he went outside to investigate the possibilities. In the first shed he found bins of what was obviously feed, as well as a shiny bucket hung on a hook and dried grasses. He carried a significant quantity out to the pens and distributed it to the impatient animals. Eyeing them, he decided the two biggest were probably destined for eating, but there was a herd of five smaller animals which reminded him of goats, and two definitely needed to be milked.

He made his way inside the pen and separated out the two females, looping small halters he found hanging from the fencepost around their necks and leading them into the barn, where there was a stool and the bucket. He sluiced it out thoroughly at the well close by, took a deep breath and marched inside the gloomy shed to do his best at milking. Fortunately the baby was napping, curled up against his chest, probably soothed by his heartbeat and his Badari body heat.

What followed was an exercise in frustration. If any of his brothers had seen him trying to figure this out they’d have laughed themselves sick, he was sure. Seven hells if he’d had to watch himself he was sure he’d be prostrate with laughter too. One of the goats was co-operative but the other one tried repeatedly to kick him and head butt him, which wasn’t a threat to him, being Badari, but was annoying. Eventually he got the more placid beast in position, the halter lead tied to a hook on the wall so she couldn’t move too far and then he sat on the stool, flexed his fingers and reluctantly put his hand on the bulging milk sac. The logistics of what needed to be done were clear enough to him but applying the proper pressure and finger movements to the teats was tricky. He was rewarded eventually with a trickle and then a steady flow of warm goat’s milk.

Confidence boosted, he swapped out the docile goat for the stubborn one and was able to get about half the quantity of milk from her before he had to give up due to her antics.

Putting them into the corral for now, he retreated inside the house and fixed up as many bottles as he could. Would this stuff keep? He couldn’t take a goat with him to the spring. There was a partially filled bottle left from the last feeding and experimentally he took a sip. The taste wasn’t to his liking but he didn’t detect any hint of spoilage.

Taking one of the bottles, he went to the rocking chair and sat awkwardly, wedging himself into the seat which clearly hadn’t been designed for a man his size. Luckily the local Badari were built on a generous scale, if not as big as he was. Darik arranged the baby in his arms and offered her the bottle. She latched onto the nipple with no hesitation and sucked greedily, watching him the whole time with her expressive eyes.

He stroked her silky hair. “You’re a heartbreaker already, little one. What am I going to do with you?”

There was no way in seven hells he was leaving her here. There were no other settlements anywhere close he could take her to. He visualized the map and confirmed that. He didn’t have time to backtrack all the way to Javon’s gathering. She would have to come with him. Actually Darik found he was relieved there was no other solution. He was fiercely protective of her already. She was his to watch over and care for now and he would do his absolute best for her.

What would happen when he reached the spring and completed his quest for the goddess? Surely one who was worshipped as the Great Mother would take pity on this innocent child and help him solve the problem?

He had to place his faith in the goddess on this.

The baby was making sounds of distress and refusing the bottle so he picked her up to adjust her position. She belched a huge burp and spat up a quantity of the milk, which fortunately landed on the floor and not all over Darik. He had a vague memory now of Megan talking about how one had to burp a baby and should keep a cloth handy.

“I’ve got a lot to learn, I can tell,” he told the baby who blinked at him and resumed her vigorous drinking.

Lingering here was a bad idea but he couldn’t rush the child and she needed a full belly before they left.

Once she was done, he burped her again, cautiously and settled her into the sling, where she felt right, the slight weight perfect. She had a fresh baby scent which he and his predator found soothing and sweet. Darik nuzzled her tiny head as she cooed, in a good mood now she was dry, full of milk and getting attention. She grabbed his hair and he had to disentangle himself from her tiny fingers. She pulled with surprising strength for one so tiny.

Carrying the infant, he searched the house for anything useful, finding a better pack than the one he had. He loaded the full bottles into it, as well as a loaf of fresh bread and other essentials from the kitchen for himself. Then he ventured upstairs again, taking diapers, fresh clothes, two handmade baby blankets and several small stuffed animals which had obviously been sewn with loving care.

He found a shirt which would fit him and laid the girl on the bed while he put it on. She played with her toes while he assessed the room. There were no pictures, no portraits, nothing he could take to tell her anything about her parents in the years to come. He had no way to even know her birth name, which saddened him on her behalf.

“I’m going to name you Mia Laryllis,” he said to her. “It means beautiful flower in my language. I’ve never seen a baby as beautiful as you are to me.” Not that I’ve seen many babies . Picking her up, he gave her a cuddle and tucked her into the sling with one of the stuffed animals, which she grabbed and began sucking on the long ears. As he headed toward the ladder, something caught his eye on the table beside the bed and he detoured to examine the item. It was a broken necklace, with a pendant made from silver wire and a beautiful agate, lavender and dark blue, with opalescent inclusions. Camron can fix it for her when we get home, he thought. An heirloom of her mother’s for Mia at least. And there I go, assuming she’s going to be raised as my child. Going to have to persuade the goddess to grant my request.

He made the leap to the floor, landing smoothly so as not to jar the baby. As he walked out of the house he took another long look around but saw nothing else easily transportable to take for Mia. As he was about to walk out the door an intricately carved wooden spoon hung from a nail on the wall caught his eye and he tucked it into his pack. Closing the door respectfully, he took a few minutes to open the pen and encourage the animals to meander outside their enclosure. After making sure the water trough was full, he’d done all he could. He didn’t have much hope for the beasts evading the local predators—well, maybe the ornery goats would do all right—but at least they wouldn’t be trapped and left to starve.

Darik had no desire to set foot in the other two houses but he forced himself to make a quick reconnaissance, mostly to make sure there were no other children left behind as Mia had been. The homes were empty and saddened him. Three families or one extended family had been living their lives here, probably pretty happily and then in one night the enemy brought their form of tragedy to people who in no way deserved their fate.

Knowing he’d been here much too long, Darik headed out of the clearing, going north at an easy jog, wondering what the goddess had in store for him and Mia next.

He was forced to travel more slowly with the baby. She was a good companion for the most part, only growing fussy when she was wet or hungry. At those times he had to stop and take care of her needs although he enjoyed cuddling her while she drank her bottle and studied him with those intense hazel eyes. He had to backtrack twice to find the long eared stuffed animal after she dropped it and finally tied it to the sling before she made bunny hide and seek into a game for him. It was her favorite toy without a doubt and he was sure her mother must have made it for her so he wasn’t about to lose it.

He stopped for the night and spread one of the baby blankets for her to have tummy time and do her rolling over after being cooped up in the sling all day. Darik and his beast were on the alert for any slightest danger in the surrounding woods which might threaten their young companion and she slept for the night on his chest, swaddled in the quilt he’d brought, his arm holding her tight.

As they started out again in the morning he was glad he’d had extra time when he first found Mia because he could see now he was barely going to make the goddess’s seven-day deadline.

Late in the afternoon he reached a point where the plateau on which the spring was located loomed in front of him and the only remaining obstacle besides the need to climb the cliff was a broad expanse of rippling green grass, stretching in all directions. Darik had an uneasy feeling about the seemingly benign expanse of open ground and his predator was the same. He lingered in the tree he’d chosen to ascend for a long time, studying the terrain and seeking to pinpoint the cause of his unease.

So far on this journey he’d encountered nothing a determined everyday person couldn’t overcome but the legend he’d been told, about the chief who sent a hundred men here and only got ten back, lingered in his mind. What hazard had they encountered capable of taking such a toll of seasoned soldiers?

A flicker of movement caught his eye and he stared in disbelief as a group of five adult creatures the likes of which he’d never seen before ambled into view, a raft of juveniles scampering around their feet. The beasts stood about four feet at the shoulders and were covered in white-black-and brown feathers but there was nothing cuddly or cute about their massive legs, bulging with muscles and ending in three clawed toes with talons longer than his. Their front paws were like vestigial arms, short and with wings much too small to actually fly. He was caught by the way they moved, which was reminiscent of birds, and could also tell they were communicating in some fashion. One of the adults snapped at a juvenile which tripped over its feet, catching the smaller individual in a mouth full of serrated teeth, tossing it aside without mercy. The injured fledgling staggered to its feet and was instantly attacked by the rest of the babies.

The tallest of the beasts straightened, its red eyes gleaming with intelligence and Darik shrank against the tree trunk as the alpha of this herd or flock stared right at the spot where he was.

“We’re in trouble now, baby,” he whispered to Mia who peeked up at him from the sling with her usual good-natured burbling.

He’d wait all night if he had to for these animals to move on from the grassland. They were obviously meat eaters with those teeth and there was nothing here for them to dine on. Maybe they came for water—he heard a stream not too far away.

Suddenly a herd of deerlike animals moved into view, coming from the stream. Darik checked on the predators and saw they’d gone still, their feathers allowing them to blend into their surroundings. As the first deer wandered past, snatching mouthfuls of the drying grasses, the hunters burst from their cover and attacked. The deer ran for their lives, moving in leaps and bounds with desperate speed but the predators kept pace with them easily. The stampede moved on past the place where Darik was concealed and he took a deep breath.

Now or never.

After making sure the sling was tightly fastened, he leaped from the tree branch to the ground, covering quite a distance and sprinted as fast as he could go toward the cliff, hoping the hunters were preoccupied with the deer. He wasn’t sure he could outrun them but he had a head start and he and his inner predator were highly motivated. His beast was used to being the apex predator in any situation and was badly shaken by the appearance of the local talent. Darik calculated he could probably take one down with his own natural weaponry but no way he could handle five, especially as they hunted prey as a team.

He heard eerie whistling sounds from off to the right where the predators had chased the deer and managed another burst of speed. Why they’d want to pursue him with the easy meat of their multiple kills right in front of them he couldn’t imagine but theirs was an alien intelligence and nothing was ruled out. Taking a second to glance in that direction, he saw two of the smallest members of the flock charging toward him. He guessed the most senior were taking their turn to eat first and these two were hungry and not in the mood to wait. Darik represented a snack they wouldn’t have to fight their alpha and the two wingmen for.

Adrenaline coursed through his system and he managed to tack on a bit more speed. The swathe of grassland was wider than it had appeared at first, with a gently rolling aspect to the terrain. Darik wished for a blaster but the spear was the only thing he had. Without slackening his pace he took aim and launched the primitive weapon with all the strength in his arm and shoulder muscles, aiming for the eye of the closest animal. The creature screeched and tumbled head over tail to the ground, clawing at the spear in its eye socket with the lethal claws on its toes.

The second swerved to avoid its flailing companion and continued its pursuit of Darik.

Mia was crying now but he couldn’t spare any breath to comfort her.

He hit the wall of the cliff at a full run and began climbing, grateful to find cracks and crevices he could dig his talons into. Terrible pain lanced through his thigh and he saw the creature had made a giant leap and clawed him, trying to drag him to his death. Darik’s instinctive reaction to pull away and lash out with his own talons saved his life. Immediately he climbed to the next set of handholds. Blood dripping from its snout where Darik had scored it, the beast stared at him from the base of the cliff while he hung, blood streaming down his leg. “Don’t wait for me to fall,” he yelled at the beast defiantly.

Rising to its full height on the powerful hind legs, his adversary made a leap at him but missed.

Too close for comfort but it can’t climb or fly, thank the goddess. He scrabbled his way upward, ignoring the pain from the gaping wound. He wasn’t able to use the leg in any meaningful way but had enough strength in his arms and the uninjured leg to continue his ascent. While it was true a Badari could heal himself quickly, an injury as grievous as this one would take longer and leave him seriously weakened. He needed a healer but there was no point in wishing for what he didn’t have.

The climb seemed to go on forever. The predator sat and waited below, confident he was going to fall. Darik was determined to make it, for himself and for Mia, and he let his inner beast take charge when he grew lightheaded from the loss of blood.

Finally he was crawling over the lip of the plateau, careful not to crush the baby strapped to his chest, digging his talons into the ground at the summit and moving on sheer stubbornness alone. He prayed to the goddess that there were no more such predators here on the plateau or he and Mia were indeed finished.

Rolling onto his back, he stared at the sky and gasped for breath while he waited to see if they were going to be attacked. Being so vulnerable was wrenching and he soon raised himself to a sitting position, claws and fangs out, and surveyed the plateau. There were a few small trees but otherwise the area was open, waving grasses and flowers in a carpet. At the far end of the rectangular expanse he heard water.

He had to take a minute to bind the wound in his leg, tearing a piece off the shirt he’d borrowed at the fur trappers’ settlement. It was healing but slowly. Experimentally he got to his feet and wavered a bit, dizzy from the loss of blood but he refused to fall. One laborious step at a time he headed for the sound of water, dragging his injured leg. Mia found this lurching gait amusing as she swung in her sling and her baby laughter lightened his mood a bit.

His destination came into view. The spring burbled up from the rocks and fell in a graceful cascade into a small pond, with a stream flowing out the other side and making its way to the edge of the plateau, where it formed a small waterfall. The pond was covered in water lilies and there were colorful insects flying over the surface. Birds sang from the trees and the whole scene was peaceful and welcoming. Completely different than the danger he’d faced below from the predators.

When he finally reached the pond, after a prolonged struggle, he first made Mia comfortable on her quilt and then tended to his leg, bathing the wound and rebandaging it with the remains of the shirt. He unlooped the cord from his neck, removed the amethyst stopper and immersed the double-sided bottle in the fresh water bubbling from the spring. Once both sides were full he closed the vial and put the necklace on again. He offered up a quick prayer that the substance was the cure the mates of his time needed, including Nicolle.

Before taking a drink himself, he managed to dribble some of the precious spring water into Mia’s mouth and got her to swallow it. The whole process puzzled her and she protested a bit but even though he was taking a sample for Dr. Garrison to study and replicate, he didn’t want to take a chance on Mia missing out on whatever benefits the water from the original source might confer. Then and only then he drank deep from the refreshing spring himself. The water was cold and fizzed as he swallowed but otherwise he didn’t notice anything special about it.

Sitting on the mossy bank of the pond, he lifted Mia into his lap and waited. The goddess had said once he drank from the spring he’d be returned to his own time.

Five minutes stretched to ten and became an hour and nothing happened. Darik laid Mia on her quilt again and let her watch the dancing insects. She seemed fascinated by the shifting colors in their wings as they flew above her and he’d seen no evidence the bugs were of a stinging variety.

Darik got to his feet, finding his leg was much improved, and stared into the gorgeous blue sky of his ancestors’ home world. Mia’s home. “I appeal to you, Great Mother, to send me to my own place and time, and to take my daughter Mia with me. I’ve completed the quest you gave me.”

“Indeed you have,” said her musical voice behind him. “I’m pleased.”

Darik picked up the baby and turned to face his goddess. Her face was in shadow and he was relieved not to stand so close to dying today. She was dressed as he’d never before seen her, in a skirt and tunic of soft white leather, decorated with multicolored beads in an intricate pattern. She wore slouchy boots of the same material, also covered in sparkling patterns and her long hair was braided, with ribbons woven into the strands in colors matching the beads of her clothing.

“This is how the Badari here visualize me,” she said, coming closer. Raising her hand she lightly caressed the baby’s head, touching the silky hair and then cupping Mia’s cheek. “Such a sweet child. You wish to save this one small Badari out of all the people on this planet?”

“She’s become the daughter of my heart,” he answered. “I’d save them all if I could, even if it meant my people never came into existence. I’d gladly stay and fight beside Javon and the others if we stood any chance at all of averting the end history has already written. Their fate is harsh and unjust and being here unable to help them in any way has been the worst experience of my entire life, even beyond what I suffered in the labs. My brothers and I must defeat the enemy at home to avenge these ancestors here.”

“You’ll tell them of your time here and rekindle the fire in their hearts,” she said. “You and your pack brothers have good reason to hate and despise the Khagrish and their allies but your recounting of what you saw here will add to the flames.”

“I’m eager to bear witness.” Darik shifted the baby in his arms and addressed his biggest worry. “You’ll allow me to take Mia home?”

The Great Mother stared off into the distance for a long moment. “She didn’t survive in this timeline, you know.”

“Which is a tragedy and hurts my heart to consider, not just for Mia but for all the children and innocents. Saving her doesn’t help anyone else but then at least I feel like I accomplished one good thing in my time here. I made a small difference in the outcome.” Darik tried to put all his emotions into his words, desperate to keep the child who’d won his heart.

“Changing her fate doesn’t affect this timeline,” the goddess said.

“I’m aware of that, my lady, but it certainly makes a difference to Mia. She deserves the chance to grow up and have a life.”

The baby rested her chubby fist on his hand and he clasped it.

Pivoting on her heel, the Great Mother nodded. “This outcome doesn’t displease me. It’s time to leave this place, Darik. Your mate has kept a vigil over you all these days, not leaving your side, talking to you, caring for you.”

“I thought I heard her voice a few times in the night,” he said, automatically checking the mate bond and encouraged to find it shinier than it had been. “I decided I was dreaming.”

“Who can say what passes through the boundaries of space and time?” The goddess laughed and Mia laughed with her. The Great Mother touched one fingertip to Darik’s shoulder and green sparks flew. The baby tried to catch them but Darik straightened his injured leg as the healing energy coursed through his sinews and muscles. “Whatever you wish to take with you to Ushandirr must be on your person or touching you,” the goddess said.

He rushed to collect his pack, cramming the quilt into it but never letting go of Mia. One handed he got the sling over his head again and placed her securely in it. He made sure he had the long-eared bunny toy attached to the carrier. One hand protectively shielding her and the other clutching his pack with the precious mementoes for Mia, he stood beside the water.

“I’m ready.”

The pond waters became choppy, waves washing across its expanse and mist rising from the miniature white caps. The fog swirled towards him, encircling him. Darik raised his head to catch one final glimpse of the beautiful blue sky and then he was completely engulfed in the white vapor. Tiny purple motes danced in the mist around him and he realized he was losing consciousness. Holding tight to Mia he prayed for a successful outcome to this trip through time, trusting in the goddess but worried nonetheless. The baby was so important to him he fought panic at the idea he might lose her in transit.

He couldn’t see but he could hear her, not sounding at all distressed or upset, which was good and he felt her tiny body cuddled to his chest. “We’ll be home soon, baby,” he managed to say before the darkness took him and he knew no more.